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Thursday, May 18, 2017

Mizzou Black Lives Matter Protests Cause Job Cuts

Officials at the University of Missouri’s flagship campus in Columbia have announced a plan to cut approximately 400 jobs and raise tuition in the face of a projected 7.4 percent plunge in student enrollment and a $14.7 million state budget cut.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 employees will simply lose their jobs at the taxpayer-funded school. The rest of the job cuts will come either because people are retiring or because the school won’t renew the contracts of non-tenured professors, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The 7.4 percent decrease in student enrollment will cause a $16.6 million drop in revenue. School officials are responding to the revenue reduction by raising tuition by 2.1 percent. The tuition increase will generate about $7 million.

Garnett Stokes, Mizzou’s latest interim chancellor, announced the staff cuts and the tuition increase on Monday at a forum on campus.